Class: Lahzar

Here is the first type of monster-slayers found on the Half-Continent. All quotes and pictures below are taken from the the books.

lahzar(s), sometimes spelled in old texts as "lazhar"; also called catharcriths, thanatocates ("death-bearers"), orgulars ("haughty ones" - the name once given to the heroes of old), spooks-and-pukes or just spooks.

Though no one knows for sure, it is commonly held that lahzars first appeared in the Empire around [the year] 1263, over a century before the Battle of the Gates. They were said to be among the survivors of [a previously unknown civilization] from far northwest beyond the Half-Continent who called themselves the Cathars. It was rumored that these Cathars were fleeing the destruction of their realm by the rise of one or many false-gods. Settling in the far west beyond Hamlin and Pechenneg, and in the once small stronghold of Sinster in the east, these Cathar refugees brought with them their ancient surgical knowledge, techniques unknown in the Half-Continent except to a learned few.

These techniques were called clysmosurgia and involved grafting into a person's body special organs - called mimetic organs - harvested from monsters, altered, and grown in vats. Once put inside a person's body, these mimetic organs could give the subject unheard-of abilities; the power to generate deadly arcs of electricity inside the body (the fulgar), or send forth brain-frying waves of bioelectricity (the wit). Clysmosurgia was quickly rejected by the conservative as a form of "dark" or "black" habilistics (also called morbidology), and it was declared illegal throughout the Empire. Yet since their refuges were, and still are, beyond the Imperial jurisdiction, the Cathar surgeons continued their work.

To put a person through clysmosurgia is called transmogrification, and a person so transmogrified is called a "lahzar", a Cathar word meaning "those who have returned (from the grave)", called so because of the long period they are under the surgeon's knife. One side effect of having these impostor organs within them is a constant dull ache, occasionally sharp. For wits it manifests itself behind the eyes and in their skulls; for fulgars it hurts in their arms and shoulders and down in their guts. Even a lahzar's scars might ache on cold days. Another problem is gauntness caused by the overworking of their pith - what we would call "the metabolism" and "the immune system" - as their bodies strive to accommodate the intruding flesh; this can bring on mood swings and even psychotic episodes. Lahzars might be powerful, but they are far from happy folk.

It took almost three quarters of a century before people began to catch on to just how much more effective these new lahzars were against monsters. During that period lahzars were outlawed in Imperial lands. Their success at the Battle of the Gates, employed in disobedience to Imperial law, won them a grudging acceptance in society. Since then, while clysmosurgia remains an illegal realm of habilistics, lahzars themselves have been legitimized, their labors rivaling and even eclipsing the work of the traditional skolds [monster-hunting alchemists].

Because, however, lahzars have so many alien organs stuck into them, it is still a topical parlor-room debate as to whether or not lahzars are actually a kind of gudgeon [a man-made monster, an abomination]. This is an idea that lahzars find completely offensive and refute utterly. As a consequence of this question, their foul moods and strange drafts, lahzars are still considered pariahs, a necessary evil.

Even with an expensive set of proofing [armoured clothing], non-lahzars would find them extremely difficult to beat in a fight, and this has granted them a status that is not low but simply outside the existing social ranks. This unique status has made becoming a lahzar popular with the fashionably bored young sets of the gentry and the peers, and they spend large chests of their mama and papa's [gold] to make the trip to Sinster and seek out the best transmogrifer they can afford. A surgeon of average skill will perform clysmosurgia for about 1 200 [gp]; the best will do it for about 3 000 [gp]. Payment can be made in advance, or over a period of time from the lahzar's earnings as a monster-slayer, soldier or bodyguard.

After an initial period of interviews and testing, a subject is either refused or allowed to proceed. A refused subject is free to seek another surgeon. If accepted, it takes several days to complete the operations to make a person into a lahzar (transmogrify them). The whole time the subject is kept drugged and strapped to the cutting table. Once the transmogrification has been done, and the lahzar has been "made", it can take anywhere from one month to half a year for a person to recover. During this recovery they receive training from the surgeon's aides in the ways of a wit or a fulgar. From time to time it is common for lahzars to return to their surgeon for observation and "repairs" - operations to mend damage caused by illness, organ rot, spasming or violent injury. These repairs require only a day or so under the knife and a fortnight at the most for healing afterward.

The "skills" or "abilities" or "powers" their organs give to a lahzar are called potencies (sing. potency). It is these potencies that make a lahzar so effective against monsters (and people too for that matter). The arcs and lightning of a fulgar and the mental and sensory assaults of a wit are much more consistent in their deadly power and easier to deliver than a skold's [deadly concoctions]. Despite this lahzars are regarded less as civilization's heroes and more as a distasteful new "fad".

Obviously lahzars will charge for their services, commanding high prices for the efficacy of their labors. In a quiet year they can earn around 200 [gp]; in bumper years when monsters are overactive this can rise to 500 [gp].

Miss Europa, a fulgar, wielding a fuse.

Fulgar

fulgar(s) (said "fool-garr"), also astrapecrith ("lightning-holder"); a lahzar whose surgically inserted organs (known as the systemis astraphecum) allow him or her to make, store and release immense charges of electricity. [...] Fulgars get their name from the artificial organ known as the Column of Fulgis, a jellylike muscle that produces the electrical charges they wield. Most fulgars mark themselves with the spoor [alchemical tattoo] of a diamond, which is the universally recognized sign of their kind. [The potencies of fulgars] are known as eclatics.

A: +1 PD, Potencies, Chemical Dependency, Arcing
B: +1 PD, Resisting, Vacillating
C: +1 PD, Impelling
D: +1 PD, Thermistoring, Factotum

Starting items:

• fulgaris,
• proofing (any clothes you want, Def as leather),
• ingredients for a week's worth of treacle (see below),
• a crippling debt to your surgeon.

fulgaris (said "fool-ger-riss"); two poles of differing lengths used by fulgars to extend their reach and give a thermistor control over bolts of lightning. The longer pole is the fuse [treat as a staff], the shorter being the stage [treat as a club]. Both fulgaris are wound tightly with copper or iron fulgurite wire and capped at each end with ferrules of the same metals.

Potencies
You have been surgically altered to gain strange, inhuman powers, called potencies.

You may channel your powers using Potency Dice (PD). Each time you wish to use one of your abilities, invest any number of your PD. The [sum] of the PD rolled, as well as the number of [dice] invested, may affect the result.

Unlike the MD of a wizard, your PD always return to your pool and can be used any number of times per day. However, each time you use your powers, add +1 SD (Strain Die) to your pool. You must roll all your SD whenever your roll any PD. These dice do not count towards the [sum] or [dice] of any given potency, but they do count towards the multiples (doubles, triples, and so on). Use two different colours of dice.

spasm or spasming; wretched condition where a lahzar's body rebels for a moment against the foreign organs squeezed within it and the organs fight back. This happens when the mimetic organs are being used and is usually as a result of not taking one's Cathar's Treacle and the rest. It is, however, a risk (very slight) that lahzars run all the time, whether they have taken their concoctions or not.

The results of spasming can be various, from a slight strain within that goes away after a few hours to severe internal hemorrhaging and serious organ damage. After spasming, a lahzar often needs to return to his or her transmogrifier (lahzar-making surgeon) for observation and even further operations.

Every time you roll a multiple of any number on your dice, you suffer a bout of spasming from overexertion of your mimetic organs. Roll on the table below using Xd6, where X is the multiple you rolled (eg. when you roll a double, roll 2d6 and look below).

1. (You will not roll this.)
2. You feel a momentary sharp pain (in your chest for fulgars, or headache for wits), but nothing worse happens.
3. Muscle cramps leave you fatigued. You gain 1d6 Fatigue that fills one inventory slot each.
4. You are deaf and mute for 1d6 rounds.
5. You fall prone in pain, screaming.
6. A mild seizure twitches your body. You gain 2 extra SD.
7. You feel weary and aching. The PD used for this potency are burned and will return only with the next long rest.
8. You take 1d6 damage as blood drips out of your mouth or nose.
9. You are blind for 1d6 rounds.
10. A painful seizure nearly overwhelms you. You have disadvantage on your next roll.
11. Your potencies run wild for 1d6 rounds. For fulgars, anyone touching you takes 1d6 damage. For wits, anyone within 10' must Save or fall prone due to vertigo.
12. The potency fails spectacularly, doing the opposite of what it should. The GM will tell you the exact effects.
13. You are paralyzed with seizures for 1d6 rounds.
14. Your mimetic organs hurt badly. You will gain no benefits from sleep this night.
15. If a fulgar, your limbs twitch and cannot be stopped. If a wit, you have a splitting headache. You have disadvantage on all rolls for an hour.
16. You take 2d6 damage as your spasming muscles strain against your creaking bones.
17. A fit of convulsions leaves you weakened. You take 1d6 Str damage.
18. A powerful spasm nearly snaps your bones. You take 1d6 Dex damage.
19. You suffer constant mild cramps. You take 1d6 Con damage.
20. You scream in unbearable pain and fall unconscious for 1d6 hours. Nothing can rouse you sooner.
21. (And more.) You spasm violently, breaking your bones and snapping your spine. You die.

Note that the potencies of fulgars do not mix well with larger amounts of water, while wits have no such problems.

Chemical Dependency

Cathar's Treacle, treacle or plaudamentum; draft [potion] drunk by lahzars. Its main function is to stop all the surgically introduced organs (mimetic organs) and connective tissues within a lahzar's body from rejecting their host. The nature of the ingredients and the way in which they react means that Cathar's Treacle does not keep for very long at all, a few hours at best, and has to be made afresh each time. It must be taken two times per day, or the lahzar risks spasming. If lahzars go more than a few days without the treacle, their organs start to rot within them, and after a week without it the lahzar's doom is certain. The parts, or ingredients, for Cathar's Treacle are as follows:

• 10 of water
• 1 of bezoariac
• ½ of rhatany
• ¼ of Sugar of Nnun
• 1 of xthylistic curd
• ½ of belladonna (optional)

There are other drafts that a lahzar must take periodically, but Cathar's Treacle is the most important. For fulgars the next most important is a daily dose of fulgura sagrada or saltegrade. For wits it is a daily drink of iambic ichor; Friscan's wead every two days; and two tots of cordial of Sammany three times a week, plus other traces throughout their lives.

Such dependency is a trade-off for the immense power they possess. A physician would also recommend a dose of evander every so often to lift the spirits and fortify the body.

You need to make and take your treacle, removing all SD when you drink it. Replenishing the ingredients for a dose of treacle costs roughly as much as a healing potion would. Ignore the other drafts except for flavour reasons.

Every day you skip your treacle, not only you won't get rid of your SD, but also risk a [days without treacle]-in-20 chance of organ rejection and subsequent gangrene. Roll every day until you start to take your treacle again, or the check succeeds. Once your body rejects the mimetic organs within, treacle can no longer help you and you will take 1d6 Con damage per day until you can be seen and fixed by a surgeon.

Arcing
R: touch; T: creature; D: 0

The most basic skill of fulgars, you can generate a charge of electricity and release it by touch. Indeed, a fulgar has to make physical contact for their potencies to have any effect, as the electricity must be earthed to do its work.

Your arcing deals [sum] + [dice] damage.

Resisting
R: 0; T: self; D: [sum] rounds

You build up a charge and store it until your whole body becomes charged with electricity. Anyone touching you (directly or through conductive object) will get the full force of the shock, taking [dice] damage.

Vacillating
R: 0; T: self; D: concentration, up to [sum] minutes

A nifty little eclatic whereby fulgars send a mild arc through themselves to be protected from the potencies of a wit (or impelling of another fulgar). It is a variation on resisting, but without storing the charge. The harder a wit tries, the stronger the fulgar needs to make the arc.

Vacillating can help against any psychic attacks, illusions or influences, including spells and various special abilities. You need to invest [dice] equal to your opponent to prevent their powers. It is up to the GM to gauge how many [dice] are necessary to counteract effect that do not use [dice] to measure their power.

Impelling
R: touch; T: living creature; D: concentration, up to [sum] rounds

A bizarre potency that requires experience and talent to master, whereby fulgars take hold of people and make them move or not move as the fulgar sees fit. It is done by subtle manipulations of a continuous charge running through the victim and requires a lot of energy to perform. The best results are achieved when the fulgar has a firm grip on his or her foe.

Resistance to electric damage prevents the effects of this potency, and creatures of HD higher than [dice] x 2 are also immune.

Thermistoring
R: 100'; T: creature; D: 0

Another potency requiring great skill and wisdom, it involves bringing lightning bolts down from the sky. This is the only potency that does not need touch to have effect, for the fulgar acts as a channel for the bolt, directing its blast to targets. However, it does require the use of fulgaris. The better a fulgar gets at thermistoring, the greater control he or she has over the bolt's final direction.

The target takes [sum] damage and must Save or be stunned for [dice] rounds. While this potency normally needs to be performed under open, overcast sky, other sources of powerful electricity can also be channelled and redirected. It can even be used as a reaction to send a lightning bolt back at its caster.

Factotum

factotum; personal servant and clerk of a peer or other person of rank or circumstance. Lahzars have taken to employing a factotum to take care of the boring day-to-day trifles: picking up contracts, collecting fees for services rendered, looking for food and accommodation, writing correspondence, heavy lifting and even making their drafts.

You have attracted a loyal hireling that can prepare your treacle and help with general necessities.

A black-eyed wit.

Wit

wit(s), also called neuroticrith ("holder of a distorted mind") or strivener; a kind of lahzar whose potencies cannot be seen like the sparks and flashes of a fulgar, but are rather felt. Collectively called antics, these potencies are subtle and more sinister, affecting the victim's mind, brain and nervous system. They are all variations on an invisible bioelectrical field, a pulse of energy called "frission" [also colloquially known as "fishing"], that wits make with their surgically introduced organs. The use of frission is called witting.

A wit who is [newly made or] "green" has little control over the direction of the frission and it tends to radiate all about. With practice wits gain control over the area and direction of their frission till they can send it to a particular point. Most wits need to see what they are aiming at, but the most talented need only gently [probe], find the target and afflict it from afar.

Wits must be careful with all their potencies; if they overreach themselves and push too hard, they risk a violent bout of spasming. Excessive use of any of the antics will leave them exhausted and prone to illness. Along with this, after only a few months of witting, they will begin to lose their hair until they become completely bald. Some then show their baldness with pride; others cover it with often brightly colored and jauntily styled wigs. Either is a telltale mark of a wit. They also mark themselves with the spoor of an arrow on the arch of an eyebrow, between the eyes, or the corner or lower lid of one or both eyes; this is the universally recognized sign of their kind.

Wits are trusted even less than fulgars, and their surly demeanor (due in some part to the constant pain they suffer) does little to help their grim reputation.

A: +1 PD, Potencies, Chemical Dependency, Sending
B: +1 PD, Scathing
C: +1 PD, Writhing
D: +1 PD, Faking, Factotum

Starting items:

• proofing (any clothes you want, Def as leather),
• ingredients for a week's worth of treacle,
• a crippling debt to your surgeon.

proofing; a proofed garment, that is clothes alchemically treated until they become sturdy and armoured, as good as any ancient metal armour.

For Potencies, Chemical Dependency and Factotum, see above.

Sending
R: [dice] x 50' radius; T: area; D: concentration, up to [sum] rounds

Also known as probing, this is the most basic and best-known antic, involving a "sending and returning" of frission all about the wit. With probing, a wit can get a mental image or feeling of where all sources of electricity are about them, whether it's the bioelectricity of an animal, a person or a monster, or the electric current within a machine or a biologue (living machine).

It takes practice for wits to understand and interpret the returning. With experience they can actually recognize the distinct electrical flutterings of a particular person, and so sending can be used to track down and find people. Beyond the cities, this antic is used to warn early of a monster's approach, well before any scout can tell.

As a side effect of this potency, any living creature caught in the frission will feel sick or dizzy, and even faint for a moment, throwing off concentration or causing a misstep or fumble. Those who might suffer from travel sickness will be worse affected, vomiting and staggering.

If the wit is not hiding her sending, all creatures caught in the affected area will feel her probing and the general direction from where it comes. Any creature within half the range must also Save or suffer disadvantage on their next roll from nausea.

The very best wits can send with only the slightest disturbance to those around them. Such a wit can attempt to hide her probing, rolling under her Int. With a success, creatures of HD equal or lower than the wit cannot feel the sending at all, while creatures of higher HD can feel faint traces of probing, but not the direction. With a failure, creatures will feel the probing normally, but due to its subdued effects will not suffer nausea.

Scathing
R: 30'; T: creature or area; D: 0

Probably the most notorious of the antics, scathing (or strivening) is a raw pouring forth of psychic power that twists and agonizes the mind. With it, an experienced wit can lay flat a whole room of foes, while the most skilled can use it to permanently break, or even kill with frightening accuracy.

When used as an area attack, the targets caught within must Save or suffer a stronger version of the malaise than comes with probing. On a success, they will have a disadvantage on their next roll from nausea. On a failure, they fall prone in seizures and loose their next turn. Creatures of HD higher than [dice] x 2 are immune to this effect.

When used against a single foe, the creature takes [sum] damage and must Save or take disadvantage on all rolls for [dice] rounds.

Sometimes referred to as "the eye of death" or "the death glare".

Writhing
R: 50'; T: creature; D: [sum] rounds

With this antic a neuroticrith can cause aches and pains in the victims' limbs, forcing them to twitch and stagger. Conversely, it can be used to temporarily numb people and leave them without feeling. Worse yet, writhing is also used to momentarily blind, or stop ears from working, or render a person mute. It requires a goodly amount of experience and a modicum of talent to use this potency with any effect.

Pick [dice] of the following effects:

• Penalty of -2 to Attack. This option can be picked multiple times.
• Penalty of -2 to Defense. This option can be picked multiple times.
• Blindness.
• Muteness.
• Deafness.

Faking
R: 50'; T: creature; D: concentration, up to [sum] rounds

This is a very difficult potency, with the wit requiring a view of his or her victim. With delicate, subtle and precisely aimed probings of their frission, the wit can make a person think that he or she has heard or felt something, when in reality there is nothing. The best wits can even make people see what is not there. People can be driven barmy with such unseen pestering, or have their attention diverted at just the wrong moment.

With 1 [die], nothing more than an unintelligible whispers or a faint touch can be faked. With 4 [dice], you could make your unfortunate victim talk to illusory people, read an illusory book, or explore an illusory room. Note that faking always targets a single creature - the illusion is mental and cannot be perceived by anyone else.

Lady Threnody, a young wit.